Moonchild
by BrokenRecords
Summary: I got inspiration from Moonchild by King Crimson, but I also was motivated by a Tolkien poem from Tales of the Perilous Realms - Shadow Bride. It's only short, I don't usually write short stories so yeah, read it and tell me what you think.


Her fingers were careful as she turned the handle ever so slowly, and, with a small click, the door swung open.

She went out, breathing in the cold night air, and ran silently down the path. She was just a dark shadow moving through the night as she sprinted down the street.

And she was free. She couldn't hold back the wide grin that spread across her face as she ran, ignoring the protest in her cold legs. She'd never felt more free in her life. Her eyes strained in the dark to find the denser black that she knew was a forest. Left at the graveyard, up the hill and around the roundabout. She was in the country-side now. And she didn't stop until dawn. Once the sky in the east grew lighter with pale blue-grey, she struggled on towards the sun, through the cold, wet, dewy fields, carving a path through the grass. A woodland, a refuge, was visible through the fog on the horizon. She practically crawled through the undergrowth before collapsing amongst the trees on the mossy floor just as the first sunbeams streamed in through the leaves above.

When she awoke, it was dark. She blinked water from her eyes and pushed herself up off the damp undergrowth. She was cold and stiff, and small drops of arctic rain fell onto her from above. But she didn't wait long – how much time had passed, she had no idea. She kept running, deeper and deeper into the woodland, always wary for trees. Her stomach was empty but she couldn't stop to eat, she had to ration the little food she had. Her hands groped blindly through the darkness, scraping down wet tree trunks and tangling through dripping leaves. She could feel how wide her pupils were as she tramped on through the night, getting further and further into the forest. The only sounds were her ragged breathing, scrambling through the leafy floor, and the uneven _drip drip _as the occasional raindrop would break through the thick canopy above. On and on this went – she never seemed to see the daylight, only the occasional breaking dawn before she was too tired to continue and collapsed on the floor like the first night. She struggled on, never stopping as she fumbled through the black.

Yet one night, however many nights after the first it was, she saw something different. Her eyes, unused to light of any form, were extra sensitive so she saw the dim glow through the trees sooner than she should have, feeble human as she was. It was a soft, blue-silver light illuminating the trunks of old twisted trees before her. She stopped in her tracks, staring at the forest. She'd never seen it alight before. But onwards she ran, with a new strength, forwards in the direction of this strange new light. Very soon, she saw the source. It looked like some strange round glowing disc, until she heard the trickling of water. The closer she got, she realised it was a pool, giving off its own silver light. A thin, dark river ran through it and disappeared into the shadows between the trees. The pool wasn't big, but big enough to swim in, and it had a strange marble fountain in the middle, twisting up and fanning out in the top where the water trickled down like liquid flame, the droplets sparkling off the white like glistening diamonds. It hypnotised her, the beauty and rhythm of the fountain. The pool itself was set into the ground in a small clearing surrounded by a ring of trees. Elegant willows hung gracefully over the river, their thin branches swaying lightly in the nonexistent breeze. Silver reeds grew tall and dainty from the edge of the water, and the soft grass in the clearing was dotted by tiny glowing flowers. Directly above the pool was the moon, round and silver, its soft, dim light flooding the clearing. The pool was circled with marble, white wide steps leading easily down into the water. It was completely clear, though she couldn't see the bottom. And a sudden feeling of calm washed over her like the moonlight, filling her body and rolling through her mind, wiping all worry and stress away. The mist rising from her mouth twisted and swirled, mesmerising her. As though in a daze, she undressed, dropping her clothes dismissively to the leaf-strewn woodland floor. She stepped slowly to the edge of the pool, the light dancing off her porcelain skin. Her toes touched the water, and she felt no harsh coldness, but it was a non temperature. She lowered herself slowly down the steps and into the pool, ducking her head fully under.

And so she lived by the river, bathing in and drinking from the Pool. Time moved out of mind for she never saw the sunlight. When dawn approached and the ghost of grey spread in the east, she danced across the grass to dream in the shadow of the swaying willow, only to wake when all remnants of the sunset had faded from the clouds. Night birds sang about her in airy, faraway songs, haunting to the ears of those too afraid to really hear the tales of old they told in the wordless melodies. And she danced; her toes on the steps of the silver pool, her mind up with the moon hanging overhead like some milky white orb in a sky of black dotted with sparkling diamond-like stars that winked and shimmered down to her. As she danced, she began to change. Her hair, once brown and curly, now rippled gracefully down her back in strings of porcelain white entwined with tiny silver daisies. Over her pale body hung a beautiful white gown, floaty and dream-like, which glimmered midnight blue and silver when she moved in the light of the moon. She wove herself a necklace of moonlight, water and diamonds, and the braid rested against her flawless chest. And her skin, once slightly pale, was now so alabaster it was almost as white as her hair. The more she gave in to the Pool, the less she remembered of her human life. She could barely remember her family, and her home in – where was she from? She soon forgot her own name. And in those parts she became known as the Moonchild, for she lived for many, many years, never aging for the Pool would not allow it. Yet she grew restless, and impatient, but for what she did not know. She felt as though she was waiting for something, and though she spoke to her trees of it, they did not know why. She whispered to the wind, but the wind did not seem to hear.

'O why has this feeling come about me?' she asked aloud to the sky, pleading to her moon, to her sister stars who twinkled silently from above. And as she questioned in vain, she did not notice that the clouds were lightening – dawn was coming. And she sat under the willow, her white gown and white hair fanning between the blades of the emerald grass at her feet, thinking, not realising how light it was getting around her.

When suddenly, the first golden sunbeams shot through the trees and reached their way through the ropes of the willow to touch on the Moonchild's porcelain skin.

'The sun! the sun!' she cried, leaping lightly to her feet. 'I have forgotten! I did not see!'

And the warm sunshine washed over her, sparkling on her gown and glistening in her hair, and the warmth washed over her like nothing ever had. The sun's rays kissed her skin lightly, caressed her face, her body, and for the first time in many years of wondering, she felt easily at peace again. Sunlight bounced off the fountain, sending gleaming lights around the trees. Then there was a boy, emerging through the trees and into her sparkling clearing. She stared at him, for she had not seen any living creature – aside from the night birds – in centuries of her new existence. He was tall and fair-skinned, with golden curls surrounding his flawless face. His eyes were yellow and bright, and he was clad in robes of shimmering gold shot with crimson. She was cautious, moving from behind the shadow of the willow to stand on the grass in the light of the sun.

He walked to her, standing only a foot away. She felt the warmth radiating from him as she looked into his bright eyes.

'They call you Moonchild,' he told her, some emotion burning behind his words.

'Moonchild,' she repeated, her voice high soprano and musical, though strangely echoey, as though she was speaking in a large room.

'You dance in the night, you drink from the Pool of the Stars, you bathe in the waters of moonlight,' he spoke as though to himself. 'Your skin is pearly white and you – you can achieve the impossible for any other of simple mind.'

'How?' Her voice was barely a breath of sound drifting through the air with the wind.

'Your necklace is woven water and diamonds …' His fingertips lightly touched the braided silver resting against her milky chest. 'Silver diamond dew. Your hair is entwined with flowers that never wilt.' His eyes bored into hers, and he suddenly looked overcome with aching despair. 'You are beautiful,' he whispered.

His warm hand lightly touched her neck, his fingers twisting in her hair. She closed her eyes.

'And what does that make you?' she asked softly.

She opened her eyes to see him gazing longingly at her. Then he only said four words.

'Child of the Sun.'

And it all made sense to her. The waiting, the impatience; she now knew what she had been so eager for. Waiting for the sun on the mountain. Waiting for a smile from the sun child.

'You don't know how long I've waited for you,' he murmured.

And so they danced, casting no shadow upon the shining grass, and you can still see them together in the sky sometimes, arms entwined, their spirits aligned. Together the Moonchild and Child of the Sun.


End file.
